The Vampire in Europe

THE VAMPIRE IN EUROPE

Et occurrent daemonia onocentauris,

et pilosus clamabit alter ad

alterum: ibi cubauit lamia, et inuenit sibi

requiem.

PROPHETIA ISAIAE XXXIV, 1 4 .

THE

VAMPIRE IN EUROPE By MONTAGUE SUMMERS Author of 'The History of Witchcraft', 'The Geography of 'The Vampire: His Kith and Kin', etc.

UNIVERSITY

Witchcraft',

B O O K S , I N C . New Hyde Park, New

York

Copyright © 1968, University Books, Inc. Library of Congress Card Catalog Number 61-18265 Manufactured in the United States of America

CONTENTS FOREWORD

by Father Brocard Sewell

vii xvii

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION I. II.

T H E VAMPIRE IN GREECE AND ROME OF OLD

.

T H E VAMPIRE IN ENGLAND, AND IRELAND, AND SOME LATIN LANDS

III.

HUNGARY AND CZECHO-SLOVAKIA

IV.

MODERN GREECE

V.

1

78 .

RUSSIA, ROUMANIA AND BULGARIA . INDEX

.

.

.

132 217

.

.

.

282 324

FOREWORD by Father Brocard Sewell THE REVEREND MONTAGUE SUMMERS (1880-1947) was one of the most mysterious and enigmatic, albeit one of the most colorful, figures in the literary and social world of London during the first half of the present century. He was a copious writer on the history of the Restoration drama (his two large volumes, The Restoration Theatre [1934] and The Playhouse of Pepys [1935] are indispensable works of consultation and reference) ; and he was the learned editor and annotator of the dramatic works of Mrs. Aphra Behn, Congreve, Dryden, Shadwell, Otway, and Wycherley. In addition, Summers was the principal founder of The Phoenix, a society which did invaluable pioneer work by reviving the Restoration drama on the London stage in the early nineteen-twenties. Such was the prestige of The Phoenix that the leading actors and actresses of the day were glad to take part in its productions, while personalities as distinguished as Lady Cunard, Sir Edmund Gosse, and Sir Thomas Beecham thought it an honor to lend their patronage. Montague Summers was also an authority on the Gothic novel; his The Gothic Quest (1938) is still the best book on the subject, and his A Gothic Bibliography (1940) is an indispensable handbook in spite of shortcomings due to its wartime compilation, when access to foreign libraries was impossible. Summers was the editor of new editions of such typical Gothic romances as Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya, or The Moor, Flamenberg's The Necromancer, and the Marquis of Grosse's Horrid Mysteries, to all of which he wrote valuable introductions. He is better known, however, as the author and editor of a series of works on the history of witchcraft, black magic, and kindred subjects, beginning with The History of Witchcraft and Demonology (1926), The Geography of Witchcraft (1927), and The Vampire, his Kith and Kin (1928), all recently republished by University Books Inc. under the editorship of Mr. Felix Morrow. Summers was the translator and editor of the first and only English edition of the greatest of all witchcraft classics, the vu

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Malleus Maleficarum of Sprenger and Kramer (Lyons, 1484). He was the author of English translations of Sinistrari's Demoniality and of The Confessions of Madeleine Bavent, the Possessed Nun of Louviers, both of which were the subject of police court proceedings which resulted in the condemnation of the books as obscene and the impounding of all remaining unsold stocks. (The late nineteen-twenties and early thirties in Britain were an era of such imbecile proceedings, when a number of valuable works, among them so fine a novel as The Well of Loneliness, were banned by ignorant judicial functionaries.) Montague Summers died suddenly on August 10th, 1948, and his affairs were thrown into the greatest confusion by the death shortly afterwards of his secretary and heir, Hector Stuart-Forbes, who alone could have made available the necessary material for a biography of this remarkable man. Unfortunately, all Summers' private papers and literary remains have disappeared save only the manuscript of his unpublished literary autobiography The Galanty Show, which I have been fortunate enough to be able to trace and which is now in my possession. This work, which is being edited with a view to publication, deals only with Summers' career as man of letters and man of the theatre ; a second volume which he projected, and which was to have dealt with his ecclesiastical career and his researches in the field of occultism, was never written. I have, however, over a number of years, succeeded in assembling a mass of information concerning the life of Montague Summers in all its aspects, and this is now being collated and assembled for publication as a separate Memoir by Summers' friend Mr. Joseph Jerome. Summers was something of a mystery even during his lifetime. His friends remember him as the kindest and most genial of men, with a gift for hospitality; but there are others who profess to have found him "sinister." A hundred amusing and mildly scandalous anecdotes of him are to be found in memoirs and biographies of the period ; but in some quarters he was regarded with nervous alarmand not only because he had a tremendous gift for crushing repartee and did not suffer fools gladly. Rumor and legend had it that he was, or had been, something more than an academic historian of the black arts which he chronicled with such learning and gusto. It seems likely that there

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were certain events in his younger days, known only to himself and a few others, which were best forgotten. It is quite probable that the warnings sounded in his books against the dangers of dabbling in necromancy were based on some early experiences of his own. He publicly advocated the re-imposition of the death-penalty for witchcraft—and unquestionably he was sincere in doing so. While some people regarded him as a kind of clerical Dr. Faustus, others viewed him as a modern Matthew Hopkins, and he was sometimes spoken of as "the Witchfinder," which amused him greatly. There was also, and there still is, much speculation as to the origin of the holy orders which he professed; for he wore clerical dress of an antique and striking pattern, and was observed to be punctilious in the recitation of the Breviary. But his name did not appear in either the Roman Catholic or the Church of England clergy lists, and he seemed to be without ecclesiastical employment, although he had a private oratory in which he said Mass in each of his successive residences. While he gave it to be understood that he was a Catholic priest, he was more commonly supposed to be an unfrocked parson. This allegation was untrue, but it amused Summers and he made little effort to dispel it. The known facts, however, are as follows. Summers, who was a graduate of Trinity College, Oxford, was ordained deacon in the Church of England in 1908. This alone gave him an unquestioned title to the style of "Reverend," his right to which has often been called in question. But in 1909 he left the Church of England and began to study for the Roman Catholic priesthood at a theological seminary near London. He remained there less than a year, and seems to have continued his studies on the continent of Europe (possibly at Louvain). He was ordained deacon according to the Latin rite; but when the question of his ordination to the priesthood arose his superiors in England gave an adverse decision. Naturally, the reasons for a decision of this kind normally remain known to the authorities and the person concerned alone. They may amount to nothing more than temperamental inaptitude on the part of the candidate for the duties and the obligations of the priesthood. Summers' personality and some of his interests were sufficiently unusual to make

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it quite understandable that his bishop should have hesitated, and then declined, to ordain him. However, Summers does seem to have been ordained priest at some later date, either—as he gave it to be understood—by a Catholic bishop in Italy, or else by an episcopios vagans ("Old Catholic" or the like), whose ordinations would be admitted as valid, though unlawful, in Rome. A young man who used to serve Mass for Summers in his private chapel at Richmond c. 1927 was once shown what appears, from the description given, to have been a genuine testimonial of ordination, signed by an Italian bishop; but with the dispersal of all Summers' papers it is unlikely that this document will ever be seen again. The fact that Summers never presented his credentials to any English Catholic bishop makes it probable that his ordination was in some way surreptitiously obtained, and so technically irregular. This would make him none the less a priest; but each exercise of his ministry would be a defiance of ecclesiastical order and so render him liable to various censures and penalties of church law. In his Foreword to the new edition of Summers' History of Witchcraft and Demonology Felix Morrow says: "Most objective students will, I think, agree with me that the fascinating and sometimes horrifying book which follows was written by a serious and able priest who held firmly and consistently to his conception of the inseparable connection between the supernatural and witchcraft." No unprejudiced reader of the book would be likely to disagree; but a certain reserve is perhaps necessary, and Mr. Morrow, in an earlier paragraph, has already put us on our guard; Summers, he says, was a Roman Catholic priest, "but the tone and temper of his book, and certain of his views... are scarcely in consonance with certain official or semi-official utterances of the Catholic Church." Summers was a very learned man and was fairly certainly a Catholic priest, at least in the sense of possessing holy orders which Catholics would admit as valid. But he was in no sense a duly authorized and accredited minister of the Roman Catholic church. Ecclesiastically, he was an unauthorized freelance, answerable to nobody but himself, unacknowledged by any bishop and without benefice or preferment of any kind. Hence, any claim that Summers may make that his is the authentic Catholic point of view

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on a question, as contrasted with that put forward by other Catholic writers, requires to be viewed with the greatest caution. Montague Summers' books on witchcraft and allied subjects are all written professedly from a strictly orthodox Catholic standpoint, and hence it is natural that they should sometimes be taken as expressing the mind of the Church on these subjects. But those familiar with canon law will realise that the absence of any imprimatur is a clear indication that the complete orthodoxy of these volumes cannot be taken for granted.1 Not that anything actually unorthodox is likely to be found in Summers' books ; on the contrary, he was a good theologian and a fervent Catholic. But he does, at times, where disputed questions are being treated of, give the impression that his view is the only view which a Catholic may rightly hold. However, the church does not profess to supply a ready-made answer to every question under the sun. Her concern is to safeguard the "deposit of the faith" committed to her; but the area within which, on a great number of subjects, Catholics are perfectly free to choose between various possible views, is much wider than is commonly supposed. Hence, views held by Catholics on matters outside the strict field of doctrine will often differ; and what is at one time a majority view among Catholics on this topic or that may cease to be so at a later period. Summers' view of witchcraft was undoubtedly the majority view in the 15th century ; it is no longer so today. Similar shifts of emphasis can be seen in the development of, for instance, Catholic thought on evolution, socialism, biblical criticism, and a host of other topics. Thus, while witchcraft is still today, as of old, sternly forbidden by the church, a Catholic is free to hold whatever view he likes as to the explanation of the phenomena of witchcraft and their origin. Similarly, the church forbids Catholics to take part in the phenomena of the séance-room, but passes no judgment as to the nature of those phenomena. 1

Canon 1385 of the Codex luris Canonici enacts that books written by Catholics on religious subjects, or subjects closely related to religion, may not be published without the sanction ("imprimatur") of a bishop or other local ordinary. Canon 1386 stipulates that all books written by clergy, on whatever topics, require similar approbation. The "imprimatur" does not imply any positive approval of the work in question ; it is simply an indication that it contains nothing specifically contrary to Catholic doctrine.

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Of Summers' immense learning and authority in this field there can be no question; his mistake seems to have been to regard the general medieval and immediately postmedieval view of witchcraft as being the Catholic view, instead of a view held by very many, and often illustrious, Catholics, clerical and lay, over a long period of time. As a consequence, he accorded to the Bull Summis desiderantes affectibus of Pope Innocent VIII an authority far beyond that which any modern theologian would allow it; and because of this pope's commendation of the Dominican authors of the Malleus Maleficarum he was inclined to regard this fateful book as endowed with a like authority to that which he accorded to the Bull. Especially did Summers dislike the cautious and critical approach of his Jesuit contemporary, Father Herbert Thurston, also a well known investigator and recorder of paranormal phenomena. Thurston was a very careful and cautious researcher; if his opinions with regard to the occult were inclined to be sceptical, his methods were at least in keeping with the traditional caution of the hierarchy and of theologians when treating of such matters. The reluctance of theologians to admit the intervention of a supernatural agency until all other possible explanations of supernormal phenomena have been eliminated has always been in marked contrast to the readiness of the simple faithful to see signs and wonders of heavenly or diabolical origin. (The attitude of the ecclesiastical authorities at La Salette in 1847 and at Lourdes in 1858 perfectly illustrates this point.) Montague Summers liked to think of himself as "a cautious and circumstantial investigator," as he somewhere describes himself; but he was not always so. Not that he was lacking in critical faculty, or unaware of the traditional rules for "trying the spirits." But enthusiasm for his own view of things sometimes got in the way of his better judgment; and a tendency to accept whatever was said by a Boguet, a Rémy, or a Delrio, and to discount what was said by a Thurston or a Ulysse Chevalier,2 makes him at times an unreliable guide. But when all is said and done, Summers' witchcraft volumes are an extraordinary achievement and a unique storehouse of information and erudite 2

Author of a pioneer critical study of the Holy House of Loretto.

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comment. I welcome their republication with enthusiasm. To come now to the present volume, The Vampire in Europe, and its predecessor The Vampire, his Kith and Kin, these two really form a whole and can be considered together. Although the days of the Phoenix productions were over, and Summers was sufficiently established as a writer to be able to abandon his work as a schoolmaster, which lasted from 1912 to 1926, his publishers were pressing him hard at the time when the two vampire books appeared. His History of Witchcraft (1926) had been so successful that his publishers wanted more and more. In 1928 he reissued Matthew Hopkins's The Discovery of Witches, with one of his best introductions, and in the same year appeared his edition of the Malleus, to be followed in 1929 by Boguet's Examen of Witches and Guazzo's Compendium Maleficarum. In 1927 he issued his sumptuous edition, with an introduction of over two hundred pages, of The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell, and in 1928 he brought out a new edition of John Downes' Roscius Anglicanus. It is understandable therefore that the vampire volumes seem a little less carefully written than the History and the Geography of Witchcraft. The division between text and notes is not always clearly established, which is apt to be troublesome to the reader. But the author carries us on from horror to horror by very force of his highly-charged and picturesque prose style, beginning with the opening sentence of The Vampire: Throughout the whole vast shadowy world of ghosts and demons there is no figure so terrible, no figure so dreaded and abhorred, yet dight with such fearful fascination, as the vampire, who is himself neither ghost nor demon, but yet who partakes the dark natures and possesses the mysterious and terrible qualities of both. Summers, of course, believes it all ; but one may perhaps prefer his credulity to the embittered scepticism of the editors of the late H. C. Lea's Materials Towards a History of Witchcraft (New York, Thomas Yoseloff, 1957), who seems to have found Summers' works too much for them altogether. As Summers says, of the incredulous, in his Introduction to The Vampire in Europe: "Inconsulti abeunt sedemque odere Sybillae." He puts his general position clearly in one of the last things which he wrote for pub-

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3

lication : "In the records of witchcraft, or magic, or sorcery, as I have studied them throughout the continent of Europe, in Spain and Russia, in England and Italy, one finds onself confronted, not once or twice, but literally as a whole, systematically and homogeneously, with the same beliefs, the same extraordinary happenings, unexplained and (so far as we know) inexplicable." If the developments of scientific discovery, especially, perhaps, those in the field of psychology, have thrown new light on some of these age-old phenomena, they have not thereby been rendered them less terrible, nor the church's power of exorcism any the less effective. As Summers says: "The careful investigations in connexion with psychic phenomena which have been so fruitful of recent years, and even modern scientific discovery, have proved the essential truth of many an ancient record and old superstition." Foremost among such recorded phenomena are those of vampirism and shape-shifting (the werewolf). The legends of the werewolf and the vampire are closely related; in the Slavonic tradition, for instance, it is believed that a man who was a werewolf during his life will become a vampire after his death. The vampire idea, as is well known, is especially strong in Slavonic countries, so that the scene of Bram Stoker's famous tale Dracula is aptly laid in Transylvania. But similar beliefs are to be found in Asia, and to them Summers devotes a chapter in the first of his two vampire volumes. In The Vampire in Europe he mentions two American incidents, but only in passing. America, unfortunately, lay outside his field of reference. However much Summers may have disliked the modern sceptical approach of Father Thurston and other investigators, he is quite fair in recording opinions which differ from his own. Thus he is careful to inform his readers that the eighteenth-century archbishop Davanzati, author of the rare Dissertazione sopra i Vampiri, held that "L'apparizione de' Vampiri non sia altro che paro effeto di Fantasia." In Western Europe the vampire tradition does not seem to have become well known until towards the end of the seventeenth century. Davanzati's treatise was published at Naples in 1744; Dom Calmet's Traité sur les Apparitions des Esprits et sur les Vampires appeared about a century later. 3

Foreword to Witchcraft and Magic of Africa by Frederick Kaigh (London, 1957).

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In England popular knowledge of the vampire legend derives chiefly from works of fiction such as Thomas Peskett Prest's Varney the Vampire (London, 1847) and Bram Stoker's DraculaS But prior to the sixteenth century there are many isolated incidents of vampirism or similar phenomena in Western Europe; Summers refers to the early happenings in England which are recorded in the twelfthcentury William of Newburgh's Historia Rerum Anglicarum and Walter Map's De Nugicis Curialium. As he says, "Certain aspects of witchcraft have much in common with the vampire tradition, especially the exercise of that malign power whereby the witch caused her enemies to dwindle, peak, and pine, draining them dry as hay." Cases jof vampirism in England today are rare; but those who regard it as entirely a thing of the past might weigh the words of the late Hon. Ralph Shirley (cousin of John Cowper, Llewellyn, and T. F. Powys, and an authority on many aspects of the occult). "It may be doubted indeed," he says, "in spite of the lack of records, whether vampirism in one form or another is quite as absent from the conditions of modern civilization as is commonly supposed. Naturally, these things do not get into the papers, and obviously the ordinary medical man will put down instances of the kind as pure hallucination." We gather from the pages of the present book that Summers' researches were not just a matter of library lore, but that they had included on-the-spot inquiry in places where belief in vampires and vampirism was still common. In the chapter on "Modern Greece" we learn that Summers was in Greece during 1906 and 1907, when he visited Crete and the island of Santorini, the most southerly of the Cyclades. This was not his first visit. As early as 1895 he had heard oral traditions of vampires at Mandoudi in Euboea, as also at Kokkinimilia, "a tiny thorp . . . which is reached by a mule." Possibly the criticism which Summers made of George Lyman Kittredge's Witchcraft in Old and New England can be applied with some truth to his own vampire and werewolf volumes, that they are a series of unconnected essays, their unity deriving from the fact that their chap4

London, 1897. First stage version, by Hamilton Deans, 1927. First American dramatisation, with Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula, New Haven, Conn., November 1927.

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ter s one and all relate to the same subject. Summers' mannered style—a very fine one at its best— and his fondness for the occasional archaic word or phrase are somehow very fitted to the arcane subjects of which he treats. Not the least of the charm of these unusual volumes lies in the occasional clue which the alert reader will discover whereby a chance ray of light is shed on the strange life and personality of their author. Beyond doubt, his research was indefatigable, his memory prodigious, and his prose deep and sonorous. During the year 1927 the striking and sombre figure of the Reverend Montague Summers, in black soutane and cloak, with buckled shoes—a la Louis Quatorze—and shovel hat, could often have been seen entering or leaving the reading room of the British Museum, carrying a large black portfolio bearing on its side a white label showing, in bloodred capitals, the legend "VAMPIRES." This was just part of Summers' habitual panache and sense of fun, those qualities which made him such an admirable entertainer and raconteur. Some people, judging by these characteristics alone, thought that he did not mean himself to be taken seriously on the subject of witchcraft and demonology. No very lengthy acquaintance with him would have sufficed to show them that they were wrong. As he puts it in his posthumously-published Introduction to a reprint of Richard Bovet's Pandaemonium (1684) : "The cult of evil, however it may differ in non-essential details in various countries and at various times, is precisely the same everywhere, and has at all times been the same, as it is today. The authority of such writers as Kramer and Sprenger, Bishop Binsfield, Bodin, Delrio, Guazzo, Lorenzo Anania, De Lancre—to name but a very few—must be universally maintained." AYLESFORD PRIORY 12 July 1961 near Maidstone Kent, England

INTRODUCTION IN a previous study, The Vampire: His Kith and Kin, it was my endeavour to trace back the dark tradition of the vampire to its earliest beginnings, until indeed it becomes lost amid the ages of a dateless antiquity, for this remarkable and world-wide belief was very present with primitive man, and is notably significant in the daily customs and practice, both tribal and domestic—more especially in the funeral rites and sepulchral houses—of furtherest aboriginal and most savage indigene. Nor, owing (as I believe) to the fundamental truth, which, however exaggerated in expression and communication, essentially informs the vampire-tradition did the legend die. As man marched towards civilization it persisted, losing much that was monstrous but none of the horror, for the horror was part of the truth. I also essayed to find some explanation of the traits and activity of the vampire, to formulate some sort of hypothesis which may account for these terrible phenomena. In a matter of such difficulty and intricacy it were hazardous indeed to venture to claim that my suggestions cover more than a few cases of the well-known and credibly reported instances of vampirism. None the less I have had the great satisfaction of learning that many earnest scholars and profounder students of occultism are very largely in agreement with what I posit, and I am emboldened to think that perhaps I have at least pointed towards some clearer and more detailed explication. To the feather-fool and lobcock, the pseudo-scientist and materialist, these deeper and obscurer things must, of course, appear a grandam's tale. Inconsulti abeunt sedemque odere Sibyllae. Although very certainly in tracing the tradition of the vampire it was necessary to the theme that various examples and cases of vampirism should be related these were largely illustrative of some particular point and so in a sense accidental. xvn

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The present volume, which may be considered as complementary, collects a number of histories of vampirism in European countries. Naturally these relations have not all the same evidential value. Anecdotes told by peasants and occasionally folk-lore could not be omitted. Again we are confronted with the fact that an instance of vampirism does not lose but very swiftly and surely gains by report. It is needful then to distinguish and discount, and, although I have neither tampered with nor tinkered at any text, I have taken as my rule the standard of that keenly critical and severely judicious chronicler Bom Jean Mabillon, O.S.B., that we shall write down " certainties as certain, falsehoods as false, and uncertainties as doubtful." That a large number of cases of vampirism must be accounted certain only the most prejudiced will deny. Even in many other relations which cannot be pressed in detail it seems beyond a doubt that the main facts are true whilst the accessories have been embellished for the sake of the narrative. Such a history is that of the vampire of Croglin Grange. Mr Charles G. Harper, who investigated the exact locality, assures me that Mr Augustus Hare was undoubtedly lavish in his colouring. Actually there is no place styled Croglin Grange. There are Croglin High Hall and Low Hall, the latter of which is probably the house indicated. Mr Harper adds : "But it is at least a mile distant from the church, which has been rebuilt. The churchyard contains no tomb which by any stretch of the imagination could be identified with that described by Mr. Hare." These discrepancies do not, of course, militate against the essential truth of the tale, but it should be borne in mind that a narrator who thus mingles imagination for effect's sake with fact incurs a serious responsibility. He gives a fine opening to the sceptic and of this every advantage fair and unfair will be taken. If a yarn is to be told for the shudder and the thrill, well and good ; let the ruddle be thick and slab. But write the rubric without ambiguity that this is high romance to follow. Cases of vampirism may be said to be in our time a rare occult phenomenon. Yet whether we are justified in supposing that they are less frequent to-day than in past centuries I am far from certain. One thing is plain :—not that they do not

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occur but that they are carefully hushed up and stifled. More than one such instance has come to my own notice. In The Occult Review for January, 1929, Captain G. A. Hope relates under the title The Impassable Barrier a very terrible story of a vampire. There are even vampire animals. The vampire bat all know, and not long since the papers published a brief account of a vampire wolf (as it is supposed) which at night drained the life blood of flocks and even cattle. Mrs Hayes informs me of a vampiric experience which befell her only some ten years ago, but happily in this case no actual harm was done, perhaps because the evil force (although none the less dangerous in intent) was something old and waning and had not at the time collected a sufficient reserve of that new strength for which it was so eagerly athirst in order that it might manifest itself more potently and with intensely active malice. In June, 1918, it chanced that Mrs Hayes took a small house at Penlee, South Devon, not far from Dartmouth. She writes : " I had a friend staying with me, but otherwise we were quite alone in the place. One morning we came down to find in the middle of the parquet floor of the sitting-room the mark of a single cloven hoof in mud. The house and windows were very small, so it was quite impossible for an animal to have got in, nor indeed were such the case could it have managed so as to leave one single footprint. We hunted everywhere for a second trace but without success. For several nights I had most unpleasant and frightening experiences with an invisible but perfectly tangible being. I had no peace until I had hung the place with garlic, which acted like a charm. I tried it as a last resource." In a recent book, Oddities, Commander Gould has spoken of the Devil's Footsteps that have from time to time appeared in South Devon, and it might very well be thought that the haunting at Penlee was the evocation of demonism whose energies persist, that formerly Satanists dwelt or assembled on the spot and diabolic rites were celebrated, but the purgation of the house by garlic unmistakably betrays that the horror was due to a definite vampiric origin. I have no doubt that there are many localities similarly infested, and that from time to time the vampire manifests in a greater or less degree, but the exact nature of these molestations is unrecognized and the happenings unrecorded.

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It only remains for me to thank for several pregnant suggestions and the encouragement of their warmest interest those friends whom I have more particularly mentioned in my Introduction to The Vampire: His Kith and Kin. I am sincerely grateful to many students of the occult and generous correspondents whose compliments I highly appreciate and who have, moreover, been at the pains to give me from their own experiences material that is both valuable and original. M. Fernand Hertenberger's " La Joyeuse Messe Noire " is included by the kind consent of M. Georges Briffaut. It was drawn for the edition of Là-Bas published in the collection " Le Livre du Bibliophile ", Paris, 1926. I am especially indebted to Mr Charles G. Harper for permission to reproduce as an illustration his sketch of Croglin Low Hall, which first appeared in his well-known work Haunted Houses. I N FESTO MANIFESTATIONS IMAGINISB.M.V. UULGO Del Con for to.

1929

THE VAMPIRE IN EUROPE CHAPTER I THE VAMPIRE IN GREECE AND ROME OF OLD

perhaps, in Greek and Roman authors, it may be said that, strictly speaking there are—with one possible exception—no references to, or legends of vampires according to the exactest definition of the term as given in such standard works as Webster's International Dictionary and Whitney's Century Dictionary, yet there do occur frequent, if obscure, notices of cognate superstitions, esoteric rituals, and ceremonial practice, which certainly prove that vampirism was not unknown in Italy and in Greece of ancient times. Webster thus explains the word vampire : " A blood-sucking ghost or re-animated body of a dead person ; a soul or re-animated body of a dead person believed to come from the grave and wander about by night sucking the blood of persons asleep, causing their death." Whitney interprets a vampire as " A kind of spectral body which, according to a superstition existing among the Slavic and other races on the Lower Danube, leaves the grave during the night and maintains a semblance of life by sucking the warm blood of living men and women while they are asleep. Dead wizards, werewolves, heretics, and other outcasts become vampires, as do also the illegitimate offspring of parents themselves illegitimate, and anyone killed by a vampire." There were certain demons and blood-sucking ghosts of the most hideous malignancy in Greek and Roman lore, but the peculiar quality of the vampire, especially in Slavic tradition, is the re-animation of a dead body, which is endowed with certain myatic properties such as discerptibility, subtility, and temporal incorruption. In the ancient world vampirism was very closely connected with black magic, and among the crew of Hecate, "Queen of the phantom-world"1 we find such ALTHOUGH

monstrous and terrible goblins as the ειτωτίδες, the silent watchers of the night, who may have had something in common with the terrible " Washerwomen of the Night " in Breton legend, ghouls of most ruthless savagery and cunning. Lycophron, ό σ-κοτεινός,* has a reference which would seem to imply that the ετωττίδες were also known as " the companions," and illfare the luckless wight whose society they craved as eatellite and convoy. Morning and evening, in the dark watches and at fairest noon the spectral shadow was always at his side ; once and again a faint footstep would echo in his ear ; the presence, now stealthy, now hatefully palpable, would ever be there until the unhappy wretch, driven to madness and desperation, fell into an early grave.8 Other among the attendance of Hecate were Μ,ορμώ (Mormo) who, originally a hideous and harmful cacodaemon, degener­ ated into a bugaboo to frighten children.4 But most stygian andfiendishof all this horrid train were the Έμπούσ-αι (Empusas), most fiendish and most evil, in many ways strangely akin to the vampire. This foul phantom, which was wont to appear with racking vertigo in a thousand loathly shapes, is alluded to by Aristophanes in the Banae, during the dialogue between Dionysus and Xanthias when they have crossed the Achenisian Lake. S A . και μην άρω νη τον Αία θηρίον μέγα. Αι. ττοίον τι ; ΗΑ. δεινόν τταντοδαιτον γουν γ'ιγνεται· Tore μεν γε ρους, νυνι ο ορευς, Tore ο αν γυνή ωραιότατη τις. Αι. ττοΰ 'στι ; φερ' επ' αύτην ïu. ΒΑ. αλλ' ουκετ' αδ γυνή 'οτιν, αλλ' %δη κΰα>ν. Αι. "Εμπουχτα τοίνυν εστί.

Again in the Ecclesiazusae we have the following dialogue, 1054-1057 : Γ Ρ Α Υ Σ Β . βάδιζε δευρο. NE. μηδαμως με xc/ottipç εΧκόμενον υιτο τψτδ , αντιβοίλω σ\' ΓΡΑΥΣ Β. αλλ' ουκ εγώ αλλ ο νομοί ελχει